In this message we will consider 9:1-14, a record concerning the keeping of the Passover. No matter how busy God's people were and no matter where they were, they were required to participate in the Passover once a year.
Although Numbers chapters one through eight were spoken in the second month of the second year after the exodus from Egypt (1:1), the people were charged to keep the Passover in the first month. While in the second month Moses was busily recording all the divine provisions, God charged him to write something about what was to take place in the first month. These verses record what the Lord spoke to Moses "in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt" (9:1). This indicates the importance of the Passover.
The children of Israel were to keep the Passover "at its appointed time" (v. 2). This appointed time was on the fourteenth day of the first month, at dusk (v. 3a).
Numbers 9:3b says, "According to all its statutes and all its ordinances you shall keep it." Statutes are regulations without judgments, and ordinances are regulations with judgments. The fact that the Passover was to be kept according to all its ordinances and judgments indicates that the keeping of the Passover leaves no opening for man's ideas and opinions.
Verse 6 speaks of "certain men who were unclean through contact with the dead body of a man, so that they could not keep the passover on that day." When Moses brought their situation to the Lord, He said, "If any man of you or of your generations is unclean through contact with a dead body, or is far off on a journey, he shall still keep the passover to Jehovah. In the second month on the fourteenth day at dusk they shall keep it" (vv. 10-11a).